Evidence based defensive medicine

Defensive medicine –when physicians provide or recommend unnecessary treatment or testing in order to reduce their chance of being sued– has always bothered me. It harms the patient, drives up costs, and can be self-serving by generating more income for the provider. I’m also skeptical about whether “defensive” medicine really reduces the chances of being sued.

Defensive medicine –when physicians provide or recommend unnecessary treatment or testing in order to reduce their chance of being sued– has always bothered me. It harms the patient, drives up costs, and can be self-serving by generating more income for the provider. I’m also skeptical about whether “defensive” medicine really reduces the chances of being sued.

So I was very interested in a Today’s Hospitalist article (Does defensive medicine work after all?) that reports the results of an intriguing study of hospital admissions in Florida. The study, conducted by a Harvard Medical School professor, revealed that physicians who were responsible for the most expensive hospitalizations also had the lowest likelihood of being sued (0.3% vs. 1.5%).

There are plenty of limitations –correlation isn’t causation, it’s based on hospital admissions only, maybe the doctors in the high and low spending groups aren’t comparable, etc. — and yet it does give one pause. Maybe doctors who order more tests and treat patients more intensively really do get sued less. Could it be that patients and families are less likely to sue if they feel that everything has been done for them?

The findings have serious implications, especially as we leave the era of fee for service medicine and enter the age of accountable care and capitation. Will it be possible to get physicians to be less defensive in the name of cost savings? Is it fair to do so? What role should the patient and family have? Do we in fact need some kind of liability reform?

Dr. Anupam Jena, lead author notes that malpractice is bother under and over-stated. Malpractice costs are routinely reported at only 3-5 percent of total costs, yet physicians also say malpractice is a major concern. My own suspicion is that there’s only a limited correlation between real malpractice and what physicians actually get sued for.

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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By healthcare business consultant David E. Williams, president of Health Business Group.